Work Text:
Michael Hale was a sports reporter. A sports reporter focusing on the tennis scene in particular. He had all sorts of connections in the industry. He had a massive following for his site, the HALEstorm Nation. He was well liked. He was successful.
He was also, if you asked anyone who actually knew him, a complete softie about the athletes he covered.
Not that he'd ever admit that in print.
He'd been covering the professional tennis circuit for going on fifteen years now. Long enough to watch careers rise and fall. Long enough to recognize real talent the moment it walked onto a court. Long enough to develop opinions about the people behind the ranking- opinions he kept mostly to himself, because that wasn't the job.
The job was the story. The job was getting there first, getting it right, and getting out of the way.
He was very good at his job.
He was sitting at his laptop on a Tuesday morning, third coffee of the day going cold beside his keyboard, when the photo hit his feed.
He stared at it for a long moment.
Then he said, quietly, to his empty hotel room:
"Oh, kid."
This was definitely going to cause a stir, and not necessarily in a good way. It was like when that photo of Byodoin kissing Tokugawa had first surfaced, Hale just knew in his gut that the world was going to lose its mind over the photo in front of him. Maybe even more-so than it had with Byodoin and Tokugawa.
It wasn't a dramatic shot. That was the thing about it. No red carpet, no post-match celebration, no staged moment for cameras. Just a street somewhere in Osaka, late evening light, the kind of photo that happened when nobody was looking for a photo.
Kirihara Akaya was kissing Shiraishi Kuranosuke. Not a peck, not ambiguous, just... a kiss, quiet and easy and completely unself-conscious, the kind that only happened between people who had been doing it long enough that it felt like breathing.
And Tanegashima Shuuji had his arms wrapped around both of them from behind, his chin resting on Kirihara's shoulder, eyes closed, wearing the expression of a man who was exactly where he wanted to be.
None of them had noticed the camera.
It was direct. Intimate. Just three people who were exactly where they wanted to be, and that was in each other’s arms.
They hadn’t even been trying to hide it.
“Damn, kid, what were you thinking...” Hale repeated, shaking his head. He sighed and looked through the comments, shaking his head.
People were scandalized, not necessarily by the fact that they were all men- that wasn’t unusual on the tennis circuit- so much as for the fact that there were very clearly three of them. A professional tennis player, a successful model, and a pharmaceutical student who was known to be dating the model, but was swapping spit with the tennis player.
What a mess.
Hale liked Kirihara. He was a good kid; bright, sunny, and totally unguarded when it came to the press.
That last part was the problem.
Most athletes learned early how to manage their public image. How to be personable without being vulnerable. How to give an interview that felt candid without actually giving anything away. It was a skill, and most of them got good at it fast because the alternative was having your actual life picked apart by people who didn't know you.
Kirihara had never learned that skill.
It wasn’t that he didn’t try. Hale had seen him trying. It was just that the kid couldn’t help himself. Ask him about a match and he'd tell you exactly what he'd been thinking on every point, including the ones he was embarrassed about. Ask him about his training and he'd tell you who he was trying to beat and exactly why they scared him. Ask him literally anything and he'd answer it with the specific guileless energy of someone who hadn't yet learned that the world didn't always deserve that kind of honesty.
Hale had interviewed him before his third place finish at the Japan Open, a friend of his translating the whole encounter for him because Kirihara didn’t speak a lick of English. Kirihara had spent the first five minutes talking about a particularly good crepe he'd eaten the day before with the enthusiasm of a man describing a religious experience. Hale had laughed so hard he'd nearly dropped his recorder.
He'd kept that part off the record.
He'd also kept off the record the moment at the end of the interview when Kirihara had looked at the camera and said, with complete sincerity, that he was really grateful for the people in his life who showed up for him. No names. Just that. Said it like it was the most important thing he'd communicated all day, more important than the tennis.
Hale had thought about that for a week afterward.
Now he looked at the photo again. At Kirihara's face, unguarded and happy and completely unaware of being seen.
The kid had no armor. Never had.
And what was coming at him right now was going to need armor.
Hale reached for his phone. He was going to need to get in touch with the kid. That meant he was going to need his contact info.
Luckily he absolutely had the connections to get in touch with the kid. After all, he’d actually done a lot to help public image when it came to Byodoin’s relationship with Tokugawa. They owed him one.
He picked up his phone and dialed Byodoin’s number.
The phone rang twice before Byodoin picked up.
"Hale." His tone suggested he'd seen the caller ID and spent those two rings deciding whether to answer.
"Byodoin. Good morning."
"What do you want."
Straight to it, then. Hale had always appreciated that about him, even when it was inconvenient.
"I need Kirihara's contact information."
A pause. "Why."
“Because the backlash from that photo is going to eat the kid alive.” Hale explained with all seriousness. “I handled the story about you and Tokugawa fairly when it broke. I want to do the same for young Kirihara.”
“You could have done a worse job with me and Kazuya, yeah.” Byodoin was clearly thinking it over, which was a good sign. Hale knew how Byodoin could be- if he thought that Hale was wasting everyone’s time he would have already hung up. But at the same time, the man was very loyal to his friends so getting the number out of him would also take some convincing.
"You're going to write about it."
"I'm going to write about it regardless of whether you give me the number." Hale said. "The question is whether Kirihara gets any input on how it's framed."
Silence. Well, not quite silence. Byodoin was saying something to someone- probably his husband- in Japanese. Talking the problem over in the background before getting back on the line.
“...Kirihara’s a good kid. I’ve known him for years now.” Byodoin finally stated. It came out sounding like it was hard for Byodoin to admit.
“I know he’s a good kid. That’s why I want to get his side of the story.” Hale pointed out. “If I didn’t like the kid I could just print whatever I wanted.”
“Like you’d make shit up. You’re a gossip, not a liar.” It was... well, probably the nicest thing Byodoin had ever said about him.
"And if you make this worse for him I will find you personally." Byodoin added.
"Understood."
A pause followed.
"I'm not giving you his number." Byodoin said.
Hale had expected that.
"What I am going to do is tell him you called. If he wants to speak to you, he'll make that decision himself."
That was fair.
Byodoin was quiet for a moment, then added, "Kirihara's a good kid. Don't make me regret this."
"I won't."
"We're going to tell him about this call." Tokugawa said from somewhere nearby. "So he knows to reach out."
"That's all I'm asking for."
"Good."
The line went dead without another word.
Hale set his phone down and waited.
Kirihara and his lovers found out about the photo almost as soon as it had started trending, thanks to the Google alert on Shiraishi’s phone. The news had hit around six pm- during dinner- with a simple pinging sound, with Shiraishi grabbing his phone absently and reading the article and looking stunned.
Things had progressed quickly from there.
It had been only twelve hours. Akaya was already exhausted.
He laid back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. His phone buzzed incessantly. He didn’t really feel like checking the messages.
Shiraishi was laying beside him, reading something on his own phone with the composed expression of a man assessing a situation. Tanegashima was on his other side, also awake, scrolling with slightly less composure.
"How bad is it?" Kirihara asked.
"It's trending." Shiraishi said simply.
"In three countries." Tanegashima added.
Kirihara stared at the ceiling some more.
His own phone buzzed again. He looked at it.
The group chat had forty seven unread messages, which was impressive given that it was six in the morning in Japan and two of the four members were presumably asleep.
They were not asleep.
[KIRIHARA] Zaizen had sent, at five forty three am.
[KIRIHARA AKAYA] at five forty four.
[ANSWER YOUR PHONE] at five forty five, which was funny because he hadn't called.
[okay he's not answering he's probably fine] Kaidoh had sent at five fifty.
[HE IS NOT FINE THE PHOTO IS EVERYWHERE] Zaizen replied.
[you don't know that] Kaidoh said.
[I KNOW KIRIHARA] Zaizen replied. Which was fair.
Kirihara typed back. [i'm fine]
The response was immediate.
[WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN] Zaizen sent.
[asleep] Kirihara replied. It was a lie. He really hadn’t slept much.
[IT IS A CRISIS] Zaizen replied.
[Zaizen.] Hiyoshi cut in. [He said he's fine.]
[HE'S NOT FINE HE JUST DOESN'T KNOW HE'S NOT FINE YET]
Kirihara put his phone down.
"Zaizen thinks I don't know I'm not fine yet." He reported to the ceiling.
Tanegashima reached over and patted his head. "Are you fine?"
Kirihara sighed. He thought about the photo. It was already everywhere. His manager had called twice already. His sponsors too. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could avoid them. And then there was the matter of Shuu-san’s career. He worked part time as a model... something like this could put an end to that, easily.
He looked at Shiraishi, who was still reading, still composed, still exactly himself.
He looked at Tanegashima, who was watching him with that warm immediate thing.
"...Yeah." Kirihara said. "Actually I think I am."
Tanegashima smiled. Shiraishi looked over from his phone briefly, something small and warm in his expression before he went back to reading.
The phone kept buzzing.
Other players were reaching out now. Yukimura had sent a message that was three lines long and somehow managed to be both supportive and slightly threatening toward anyone who had a problem with it. Sanada had sent something that Kirihara read three times and was still not entirely sure he understood but the general warmth of it came through clearly.
Byodoin had sent two words: stay strong.
From Byodoin that was practically a sonnet.
Tokugawa had sent: We're here if you need us. Houou says don't read the comments.
Kirihara had already read the comments.
He put his phone face down on the bed.
"I read the comments." He admitted.
"I know." Shiraishi said, without looking up. "Stop."
"Yeah." Kirihara agreed.
His phone buzzed again.
While Kirihara was fielding messages from half the tennis world, Hale sat in his hotel room and waited. Twenty-three minutes after the call ended, his phone finally buzzed.
[hale-san?? byodoin-san said you wanted to talk to me??]
Hale smiled despite himself.
There he was.
He stared at the message. Because there was an important fact here he hadn’t considered properly.
The language barrier.
Hale's Japanese was limited to approximately eight words, none of which were useful in this situation. He pulled up his translation app, typed out what he hoped was a careful, reassuring message, and watched it render into Japanese.
He read it back through the reverse translation.
[Greetings small champion. I am Hale of the storm nation. I have seen your intimate street photography and wish to discuss the narrative architecture before the wolves arrive. Please do not be afraid of my intentions which are honorable like a samurai.]
Hale stared at this for a long moment.
He sent it anyway. It was the best he had.
The response came back in four minutes. He ran it through the translator.
[yes i know you!! you wrote the thing about boss and tokugawa-san getting together that one time!! that was really good!! also what]
Hale laughed despite himself. Typed back.
I want to help you. The photo is spreading. I would like to write the story myself, correctly, before someone else writes it incorrectly. Can we talk?
[I desire to assist your situation. The photograph travels far like a determined bird. I wish to construct the narrative with my own hands in the correct manner before incorrect hands arrive. Is conversation possible between us?] Was what the message he sent read.
The response:
[okay so i think you’re saying you want to build me something?]
Hale put his head in his hands.
Okay, so this wasn’t going to be easy.
He thought his words over carefully. I want to write an article about you and your life and tennis career.
He ran the message through the translator and sent it. [I possess powerful desire to author a document of significance concerning your personal existence and tennis achievements for public consumption via the internet.]
It was a moment before Kirihara responded.
[okay so i understand most of that i think. you want to write about me and kura and shuu-san?? like a real article?? ]
Hale let out a sigh of relief. Okay, so his messages were finally making sense to the kid. He wasn’t sure exactly what was wrong. The Machine translator seemed to be doing okay translating things to English, at least.
He typed another message to send through the translator. [Correct and precise. My powerful desire is that all citizens of the earth may consume the truthful facts concerning yourself and your... romantic male companions? This humble reporter apologizes if the designated title for your persons is incorrect and requests guidance on the proper honorific for those who hold your heart.]
[LMAOOO "those who hold your heart" okay yeah boyfriends is fine!! kura and shuu-san are my boyfriends!! also this is the best translator i have ever seen in my life]
Hale typed carefully. I want to write something that protects you. The story is going to be written by someone. Better it is written by someone who likes you.
What Kirihara received: [This humble reporter wishes to construct a protective fortress of words around your situation. The document of your life will be authored by someone regardless of your preferences. Superior outcome: document authored by someone who holds warm feelings toward your person specifically.]
okay i think i understand!! you want to write something nice about us before someone writes something mean!!
Hale exhaled. Finally.
Yes. Exactly that. He typed. Can you tell me about your relationship? In your own words.
What Kirihara received: [Correct and affirmative. Is it possible for you to illuminate this reporter concerning the romantic situation using the words that belong to you personally and not to anyone else?]
What came back:
[okay so basically i was really dumb for a really long time and everyone knew except me and then sanada-san gave me this speech that was supposed to be helpful but was actually kind of a disaster but it worked anyway and then i went home and told them and now we're together and it's really good!! shuu-san is really warm and kura remembers everything about me and i just really love them a lot!!]
Hale reread that message several times.
He typed: That is the best thing anyone has ever told me for an article.
What Kirihara received: [This humble reporter declares your romantic testimony to be the supreme finest content ever received in fifteen years of document construction.]
LMAO okay. um. do you need to talk to kura or shuu-san too? shuu-san reads HALEstorm actually. he might be better at this than me
Hale looked at this message for a moment.
Yes please. He typed.
That was simple enough that the translation function actually worked.
There was a pause of approximately two minutes. Then:
[Hi Mr. Hale. This is Tanegashima Shuuji. I've read your work for years. I think we can have a real conversation now, chai.]
Hale let out a breath of relief and hit the “call” button on his phone. Tanegashima answered almost immediately.
“Hi Mister Hale, Chai~!”
“Oh thank god.” Hale let out a sigh of relief. “There must have been something wrong with my translation app. I don’t think Kirihara could understand half of what I was saying.”
In the background he could hear Kirihara saying something in Japanese. Tanegashima responded to him before turning his attention back to Michael Hale.
“It was kind of confusing, chai~. I think we got the general idea though. You want to interview Aka-tan about things in regard to that photo that’s floating around online.” Tanegashima seemed calm and relaxed despite the pending scandal that he must have known was going to cause a huge mess for all of them.
“I want to be clear, I’m not calling to dig for dirt.” Hale offered up. “I’ve been covering the tennis circuit for fifteen years. I covered Byodoin and Tokugawa when their story broke too... I hope you could see from that coverage that I try to do right by the people I cover.”
“I know. I’ve read everything you’ve written about Boss and Kazu-tan. You were kind.” A pause. “I know you didn’t have to be.”
Hale was quiet for a moment. In fifteen years of sports journalism nobody had ever said that to him quite so directly.
"Well." He cleared his throat. "I'd like to extend the same courtesy to you three, if you'll let me."
“Okay then. What kind of article are you planning to write, then?” Tanegashima spoke like someone used to the press. Like someone who knew the exact right questions to ask.
Hale was glad Kirihara had someone like this in his court.
"Three people, a relationship that works for them, nothing sensationalized. I'd run it by you before it goes live. Nothing gets published that you're not comfortable with." Hale declared. “That’s what I want to write. Something that can turn public image a bit more positive.”
Another pause. He could hear Tanegashima relaying something in Japanese... presumably to Kirihara, possibly to Shiraishi as well. A brief back and forth, too fast for Hale to follow even if he'd spoken the language.
Then Tanegashima came back on the line.
“Aka-tan has a request.”
Hale blinked. “Go ahead.”
“He says you have to make sure that people know how great Nosuke and I are.” Tanegashima’s voice was warm, happy. Obviously pleased with the praise from his boyfriend. “He says- I’m translating directly here- that people should know we’re the best people that he’s ever met.”
Hale was quiet for a moment.
"Tell him I'll make sure of it." He said.
A pause while Tanegashima relayed this.
Then, from somewhere in the background, Kirihara said something in Japanese that Hale didn't need a translator for. The tone was enough.
"He says thank you." Tanegashima said quietly. "We all do."
Hale cleared his throat.
“I’ll come to you guys for the interview. It will be easier face to face.” He offered, professionally.
“Sounds good, Chai~. We’ll be waiting.”
He hung up and sat with that for a moment before opening up a travel booking site.
Time to get to work.
Hale arrived in Osaka on Thursday morning, tired and jet lagged, carrying his voice recorder and notebook and the particular focused energy of a man who had a story to tell and knew exactly how he wanted to tell it.
Tanegashima greeted him at the apartment door with a warm smile. "Mister Hale! Welcome, chai~!"
"Thank you for having me." Hale said, stepping inside.
The apartment was small and comfortable. Tanegashima's things were everywhere. Shiraishi's things were arranged with quiet precision around them. And Kirihara was sitting on the couch looking like a man who had been told to sit still and was finding it difficult, which was entirely consistent with everything Hale knew about him.
"Hale-san!" Kirihara said, with the guileless enthusiasm of someone greeting a friend rather than a journalist. Then, apparently remembering something, he added carefully in English: "Herro."
"Hello." Hale spoke in Japanese, equally carefully.
They looked at each other for a moment.
"That's about all I've got." Kirihara admitted, in Japanese, which Tanegashima translated with a grin.
Hale laughed. "That’s fine. We have someone here to translate for us, thankfully.”
“Two people, actually.” Shiraishi commented as he entered with a tray of snacks for them, setting it down on the coffee table. His English was stiffer than Tanegashima’s but it was still there.
Hale nodded in greeting. “You must be Shiraishi. It’s good to meet you... I will say, out of all of you, you’re the one I know the least about. You’ve stayed out of the public eye since U17.”
“Well, I’m working towards a degree in pharmaceuticals. That’s significantly less interesting than what Shuu-san and Akaya have been up to.” Shiraishi sat on the couch beside the vibrating Kirihara. Shuuji sat across from them on a kitchen chair.
It was time to get to work.
Tanegashima would translate. Shiraishi would listen. Kirihara would, Hale suspected, tell him absolutely everything without any filter whatsoever.
He was right.
Shiraishi's phone buzzed quietly against his knee.
He glanced at it while Tanegashima was translating one of Kirihara's more enthusiastic answers about how they'd gotten together.
The captains chat.
He'd been waiting for this.
[I see the HALEstorm reporter has arrived in Osaka.] Atobe had sent, which meant he'd either seen Hale's travel itinerary somehow or was simply omniscient, both of which were equally plausible.
[Yes.] Shiraishi typed back, one handed, while Hale laughed at something Kirihara had said.
[I hope you're aware that the key to managing press in a situation like this is controlling the narrative from the outset.] Atobe continued. [Kanata and I have maintained complete press silence for years. The trick is consistency. Never confirm, never deny, give them nothing to work with.]
Shiraishi gazed at Kirihara, who was in the process of describing Sanada Genichirou’s epic speech aimed at him that had almost backfired. Tanegashima was laughing as he translated it for Hale.
[I guess that’s one way to do things. I think that we’ll take a different approach.] He replied.
[You don’t have much choice, after letting a photo like that get out.] Atobe replied.
Shiraishi frowned. [Not all of us have a dedicated PR team.]
Atobe ignored that comment.
[Hale is trustworthy, at least. He covered Byodoin and Tokugawa well. And the Tezuka and Echizen situation, though he's never confirmed that one in print.]
Shiraishi raised an eyebrow at that last part.
[Tezuka and Echizen?] He typed.
[Don't read into it.] Tezuka had sent.
[That's not a denial.] Atobe replied immediately.
[It's not a confirmation either.] Tezuka replied. [Shiraishi. Hale is good at his job and he genuinely likes Kirihara. You made the right call letting him in.]
A new message appeared. Tachibana, from what appeared to be a very loud kitchen somewhere given the amount of time it took him to reply.
[Sorry, mid service. Just wanted to say, what you three have looks real. People can tell. That counts for more than any press strategy.]
A pause.
[Good luck. You don't need it though.]
Shiraishi looked at that for a moment.
Then Kite appeared.
[For what it's worth, navigating a relationship where one person has a public profile is manageable if you're consistent and keep the focus on the work. The relationship becomes background noise eventually. People move on to the next thing.]
A pause.
[Speaking from observation obviously.]
[Kite.] Atobe sent.
[Yes.]
[You said 'one person has a public profile.'] Atobe replied. [That's a very specific thing to say.]
A longer pause.
[It's a hypothetical.] Kite sent.
[Is Marui Bunta secretly dating someone.] Atobe replied. Not a question.
[That is completely unrelated to what I said.]
Atobe was clearly preparing a follow up. The typing indicator appeared.
Then Yukimura appeared instead.
[Speaking of people in relationships they haven't announced publicly.] Yukimura sent. [How is Irie-san, Atobe?]
A very long pause.
[That is completely unrelated to what we were discussing.] Atobe replied.
[Is it.] Yukimura replied.
[Yukimura.] Atobe sent.
[Yes?] Yukimura replied, with the particular energy of someone smiling pleasantly at their phone.
[This conversation is over.] Atobe sent.
[You said that last time too.] Kite replied, with what Shiraishi could only interpret as relief.
Shiraishi put his phone face down on his knee, shoulders shaking. He did his best not to laugh at his friend’s nonsense.
Beside him he could see Kirihara eagerly describing a bit more than necessary about their last date. Tanegashima was laughing and refusing to translate roughly half of what Kirihara was admitting to. Hale seemed to get the picture and was laughing too.
A final message came through, apparently from Atobe having regained his composure.
[For what it's worth, Ore-sama thinks you're handling this with more grace than most would. Kanata agrees. He says to tell Kirihara he has good taste.]
Then, from Yukimura:
[We're all proud of you. All three of you. Tell Akaya we said so.]
Shiraishi looked at that for a moment.
He smiled.
Hale noticed and looked questioningly at him. Shiraishi looked a bit embarrassed.
“Just my friends sending their support. I’m supposed to tell Kirihara that Yukimura is proud of him.”
That earned a smile. “That’s right, Kirihara used to go to school with Yukimura Seiichi. It’s nice that he still seems to be friends with all of you.”
“We were roommates at tennis camp.” Shiraishi chuckled. “We have a lot in common.”
“I see, I see. How nice.” Hale put a note in his notebook to reach out to Yukimura for commentary later. Another player vouching for Kirihara’s relationship could be a nice touch.
The interview continued. Kirihara talked and talked, seeming more thrilled to have someone to gush about his boyfriends to that worried about making a good article. Tanegashima seemed to be cleaning things up a little in his translation, though he looked sheepishly amused every time he had to translate something nice Kirihara had said about him.
It was cute.
Shiraishi smiled fondly at his boyfriends. Kirihara met his eyes for just a second. The specific look of someone checking that the person they love is still in the room.
He smiled back, just as warmly as Shiraishi.
Then he turned back to Hale and kept talking.
Shiraishi grabbed his textbook, flipping through its pages to give himself something to do while the interview continued. He wasn’t reading it, not really, but at least pretending to study left him feeling more grounded. It gave his hands something to do while the rest of him was quietly, privately overwhelmed by the reality of sitting in his own living room watching the person he loved tell a journalist, in enthusiastic and occasionally excessive detail, exactly how much he loved him back.
Worth it, he thought. All of it. Every complicated moment of the last few months. Every careful decision. Every page he hadn't read.
Worth it.
Hale wrote the article on the way home.
He didn’t usually do that. Usually he let things sit a little longer before coming back to the information with fresh eyes. It was good practice. It kept him from getting sentimental.
He was getting sentimental.
He opened his laptop somewhere over the Pacific and started typing and didn't stop until the seat belt sign came on for landing.
The article wasn’t a particularly long one. Honestly, it didn’t need to be long. The story was a simple one. Three people, a relationship that worked, a photo that had gotten out before they were ready and a world that had immediately started making it into something it wasn't. Hale's job was simple. Get out of the way of the truth and let it speak for itself.
Give people what they needed to come to their own conclusions.
He wrote about Kirihara first. The kid who'd never learned to perform for cameras. Who'd spent the whole interview talking about his boyfriends like they were the most interesting subject in the room, which to him they clearly were. Who'd said, when Hale had asked what he wanted people to understand about his relationship, something that Tanegashima had translated carefully and that Hale had written down word for word:
They showed up for me before I even knew I needed them to. I think that's what love is. People who show up and treat you well.
He wrote about Tanegashima. The one who'd stepped in when the language barrier made everything impossible, who'd known exactly the right questions to ask and exactly the right things to say, who'd laughed every time he had to translate something Kirihara said about him and looked sheepish about it every single time. The model who'd been dealing with press since he was a teenager and had somehow kept his warmth intact through all of it.
He wrote about Shiraishi. The quiet one, sitting slightly apart with his textbook, reading and not reading, smiling at his phone and then at the room. The one who'd said, when Hale had asked how he felt about the photo going public, simply: It's our life. I'd rather people see it clearly than not at all.
He wrote about the photo itself. Not sensationally. Just accurately. Three people on a street in Osaka who forgot to perform because they didn't need to. Who were exactly what they were, together, without apology.
He wrote about the tennis circuit he'd been covering for fifteen years. About Byodoin and Tokugawa, who'd started as a paparazzi shot outside a party and turned into something the whole world had watched unfold. About the way this community kept surprising him, kept being stranger and warmer and more human than anyone gave it credit for.
He thought briefly to Tezuka and Echizen, always standing quietly in each other’s orbit. To Ochi and Mouri and the way they always seemed to be in sync with each other. He didn’t mention any of them. It wasn't their time yet. Maybe later.
He finished the article before the time the plane was ready to land at LAX.
It was good. It was honest. It was exactly what he'd wanted it to be.
He sent it to Tanegashima with a short note: Draft for your review. Nothing goes live without your approval. Take your time.
Then he closed his laptop and looked out the window at the dark water below and thought about a kid who'd said, in a post-match interview that nobody else had kept, that he was grateful for the people in his life who showed up for him.
He'd shown up. Finally. And he’d treated Kirihara well.
Hale thought that counted for something.
He was going to sleep like a log once he finally got home
Tanegashima read it aloud in Japanese, sitting cross legged on the bed with Nosuke's laptop balanced on his knees, translating as he went. Shiraishi sat beside Kirihara, close enough that their shoulders touched.
Kirihara listened.
It was strange, hearing yourself described by someone who had only met you once. Strange to hear the things he'd said in that interview come back in a different shape, filtered through Hale's voice and then through Tanegashima's translation, and somehow still sound exactly like himself.
He got through most of it fine.
Then Tanegashima read the quote.
They showed up for me before I even knew I needed them to. I think that's what love is. People who show up and treat you well.
Kirihara had said that. He remembered saying it. It hadn't felt like anything particularly significant at the time, just the truth, the simplest way he knew to explain it.
Seeing it written down was different.
Something happened to his eyes.
"Aka-tan." Tanegashima's voice was gentle.
"I'm fine." Kirihara said. His voice came out slightly wrong.
Shiraishi said nothing. He just reached over and took Kirihara's hand, which was somehow worse and better at the same time.
"It's a good article." Tanegashima said softly.
"Yeah." Kirihara agreed. Both eyes. It was definitely both eyes. "It's really good."
They sat like that for a while, the three of them, Nosuke's laptop screen glowing in the dim room.
"We should tell him we approve." Shiraishi said eventually.
"Yeah." Kirihara wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "Tomorrow. After I've not been crying for a bit."
"You weren't crying." Tanegashima said.
"I wasn't crying." Kirihara agreed.
Shiraishi squeezed his hand and said nothing, which was its own kind of answer.
Tanegashima got back to him eighteen hours later, after Hale had the chance to shower and sleep and even eat a dinner of frosted flakes soaked in oat milk left in his fridge that he thought was probably still fine.
We read it. All three of us, together. Can I call you?
Hale sat down his bowl and hit call, ready to hear what it was that the three men thought of the article he’d worked so hard on.
Tanegashima picked up immediately.
“Mister Hale!” His voice was warm but unsteady. Like he’d been holding himself together for a long time and was close to his breaking point. Hale supposed that made sense. Social media was still going wild with theories about his relationship with two men. The stress must be building.
"Good morning. How are you three doing?"
"We're good. We're... yeah. We're good." A pause. The sound of movement, someone shifting on a couch. "We read it last night. Together, on Nosuke's laptop because his screen is the biggest. I had to translate the whole thing for Aka-tan."
Hale smiled and nodded, though he knew that they couldn’t see him back in Japan. “If it meets your approval I’ll have a friend of mine put out some translations, of course.”
“That would be good. I’d like for people here in Japan to be able to read it.” Tanegashima agreed.
There was a pause.
"Aka-tan cried." Tanegashima said finally.
Another pause, and then the sound of Tanegashima relaying this to Kirihara in Japanese. A very indignant response followed.
"He says he did not cry." Tanegashima translated, clearly trying not to laugh.
Another voice, quieter. Shiraishi.
"Nosuke says he absolutely did." Tanegashima reported. "Both eyes."
More indignant Japanese from Kirihara.
"He says it was dusty." Tanegashima translated. "Nosuke says it wasn't dusty." A pause. "I'm going to be honest with you, Mister Hale, it was not dusty. It was the quote. About people who show up. That's when both eyes happened."
"So, what do you think? Is there anything you'd like me to change?" He asked. Professionally. Giving them the out if they needed it.
A longer pause. The sound of quiet consultation in Japanese, back and forth. He waited.
"No." Tanegashima came back. "Nothing. It's exactly right. It's us." A breath.
Hale let out a breath of relief. Good, he was glad he was able to meet their expectations.
More Japanese from Kirihara. Tanegashima laughed before he could translate it.
"Aka-tan wants to know if you can put his quote on a t-shirt."
Hale laughed, loud enough that he had to put his bowl down before he dropped it.
"Tell him I'll look into it."
Tanegashima relayed this. An enthusiastic response came back immediately.
"He says that's a yes." A pause, warmer now, the unsteady quality in Tanegashima's voice evening out into something more settled. "Mister Hale. Thank you. Really. When the photo first came out it felt like... like the world was deciding something about us without asking us. And then you called and it was still scary but it felt like someone was asking. Like someone wanted to get it right."
Hale was quiet for a moment.
"You can publish it." Tanegashima said. "Whenever you think is best. We trust you."
Hale looked at his frosted flakes going soggy in their oat milk.
"I'll put it up this afternoon." He said. "Get some rest, all three of you."
"We will." A pause. Then, away from the phone, Tanegashima relayed something in Japanese. A response from Kirihara, enthusiastic. A quieter one from Shiraishi.
"They both say thank you." Tanegashima said. "We all do."
Hale hung up and sat with that for a moment.
Then he picked up his frosted flakes and finished them standing at the kitchen counter, because he had an article to publish and the world wasn't going to wait.
The article went live at two thirty seven pm Pacific Standard Time on a Wednesday.
Hale knew the exact time because he was sitting at his desk watching the view count when it happened, which was not something he usually did. He was usually more dignified about it than that.
He watched it anyway.
It started out slow... some comments from HALEstorm Nation regulars praising the article, a lot of sharing of it. Nothing too out of the ordinary as far as what happened when he posted a story on any given day.
Then the second hour hit.
The view count climbed. Then it jumped. Then it did something Hale could only describe as aggressive.
His phone started buzzing with messages from other journalists and colleagues, wanting to know how he got the exclusive. A message from his editor that was mostly exclamation points. A message from Japanese sports photographer Fuji Syuusuke just reading well done.
He watched the comment section in real time.
He always told himself not to read the comments. He read the comments anyway, the same way Kirihara had read the comments, which made him feel a strange kinship with the kid.
They were... good. Mostly. Not universally, because nothing on the internet was ever universal, but the tone had shifted. The narrative had shifted. People were sharing the quote- they showed up for me before I even knew I needed them to- in the way people shared things that had landed somewhere real.
Someone had already made it into a graphic. Clean white text on a simple background.
Someone else had put it on a t-shirt.
Hale stared at that last one for a long moment.
He took a screenshot and sent it to Tanegashima with no additional comment.
The response came back in forty seconds.
A single voice memo.
Kirihara, screaming with delight, in Japanese, for approximately fifteen seconds straight.
Hale did not need a translator for any of it.
He saved the voice memo. He wasn't sure why. He just did.
His phone buzzed again. This time a number he recognized... Byodoin.
He answered.
"Hale."
"Byodoin. Did you read it?"
A pause.
"Kazuya read it out loud to me." Byodoin said. "Over breakfast."
Hale waited.
"...You did good." Byodoin said finally. The same tone as you're a gossip, not a liar. Grudging. Genuine. The highest compliment available from Byodoin Houou.
"Thank you." Hale said.
Byodoin hung up without saying goodbye.
Hale looked at his screen. The view count was still climbing.
He got up, made himself a fresh coffee, and came back to his desk.
There was more work to do. There was always more work to do.
But for a moment he just sat there, coffee in hand, watching the numbers go up, thinking about a kid on a street in Osaka who'd forgotten to perform because he didn't need to.
He thought that was probably the best story he'd ever told.
Irie read the article while Atobe was in the shower, stretched out across his king sized bed in his fluffy bathrobe, totally comfortable.
He read it twice. Then he sat with it for a while, the way you sat with something that had landed somewhere unexpected.
Atobe emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of steam, toweling his hair, and stopped when he saw Irie's expression.
"You read it." He said.
"Twice." Irie confirmed.
Atobe nodded. Of course he’d already read it too. Shiraishi had sent the link in the group chat when it went live in English. Atobe hadn’t needed to wait for the translation.
He hadn't said much about it. Just read it and filed the contents away for later.
"It's good." Atobe said finally.
"It's very good." Irie agreed.
A pause. The particular kind of silence that existed between them when something was being considered that neither of them had quite found the words for yet.
“He made them look human. Normal.” Irie mused.
“Well, they aren’t not normal.” Atobe shrugged. Irie shrugged.
“Tell that to the public.” Irie looked at his phone. At the quote he'd screenshotted without really thinking about it.
They showed up for me before I even knew I needed them to. I think that's what love is. People who show up and treat you well.
"Kirihara said that." Irie said.
"I know."
"Kirihara, who is twenty years old and couldn't find his way out of a paper bag without Shiraishi pointing the way." Irie shook his head, not unkindly. "And he just... said that. In an interview. To a journalist."
"He's always been like that." Atobe said. "Completely unguarded."
"Yes." Irie looked at the quote again. "It must be nice."
The words landed quietly between them.
Atobe was still for a moment. He had the expression he got sometimes, the one that wasn't quite performing anything, the one that Irie had been collecting for fifteen years because nobody else got to see it.
"Kanata." He said.
"Mm."
"Are you... " He stopped. Started again. "Do you ever think about it. Whether we should."
Irie looked at him.
"Go public?" He said plainly, because one of them had to say it plainly. And that sure wasn’t going to be Atobe.
Atobe held his gaze. "Yes."
A long pause.
"I used to think it would be more trouble than it was worth. But after all this time... I don't know. It feels stranger to keep hiding it than it used to."
Atobe said nothing. Which meant he'd been thinking the same thing. Irie smiled.
“Well, I’m not saying we should do it yet. Just... someday.” He looked at his phone again, at the comment section that was way more supportive than he’d anticipated. “The public seems pretty okay with this. They’d probably be fine with us.”
Atobe looked at him for a long moment.
"Okay." He said simply.
It wasn't a decision. It wasn't a plan. It was just... the door, opening slightly. The same door that Kirihara had walked through on a street in Osaka without even noticing it was there.
Irie put his phone down.
"Your hair is still wet." He said. “Want me to dry it?”
Atobe made a dismissive sound and went to find the blow drier.
Irie smiled at the wall.
Yanagi Renji read the article alone, which was how he did most things.
He read it carefully, methodically, attentively, noting the specific choices the writer had made and why. It was a habit. He couldn't turn it off.
He read it twice, and then read over the comments. The positivity in them defied all the data he’d collected. He’d need to reassess things.
Sanada emerged from his room eventually, hair still slightly damp from his morning shower, dressed and composed in the way he was always dressed and composed by eight in the morning regardless of whose house he was in. He took in Renji's expression, said nothing, and went to make tea.
He came back with two cups. Set one in front of Renji without being asked.
Sat down.
Renji offered his roommate a smile. He didn’t say anything. That was fine, he and Genichirou were good at filling the silence together.
Sanada’s phone buzzed. The man took it out to look at it, eyebrows raised. “Ah... It’s Seiichi.” he observed, accepting the video call and positioning his phone so they could both see Seiichi, the way he always did. Like Renji was entitled to see his boyfriend just as Genichirou was.
Yukimura appeared, somewhere bright and unfamiliar, a hotel room, from the look of it, somewhere on the European clay circuit. He looked composed and alert and like he'd been thinking about calling for a while and had finally decided to.
"Renji." He said, by way of greeting.
"Seiichi." Renji replied.
"You read it."
"Twice."
Yukimura smiled at that. The warm one, not the dangerous one. "I read it four times. I kept finding new things in it."
Sanada blinked. “Read what?”
“I sent you the link, Genichirou.” Yukimura scolded. Renji did his best not to smile at that.
“Ah... I haven’t had the chance to read what you sent yet. I was showering.” Sanada apologized.
"Well, it's a good article. Hale managed to portray Kirihara's relationship in a very positive light, and the public seems supportive of it, mostly." Renji filled Sanada in. "It defies the data I'd collected, but I'm happy for Akaya."
"Read him the quote, Renji." Yukimura suggested.
Renji opened his laptop and found it without having to search. He read it aloud, carefully, the way he read everything.
"They showed up for me before I even knew I needed them to. I think that's what love is. People who show up and treat you well."
The living room was quiet for a moment after that.
Sanada looked at his tea cup. Something was happening in his expression that he wasn't going to put into words. He cleared his throat.
“...That is good.” There were tears in his eyes. Manly tears.
Yukimura smiled from Sanada’s phone screen. “It is good.”
"Hale understood what he was seeing." Renji closed his laptop. "He has been watching the circuit for a long time. He saw everyone back during U17."
"Long enough to notice things." Yukimura agreed, with a particular weight to the words that settled over the living room.
Renji looked at his closed laptop.
People who show up and treat you well.
"Kirihara said something true." He said, to no one in particular.
"Kirihara usually does." Yukimura said. "He just doesn't always know he's doing it."
Yukimura looked at Renji through Sanada's phone screen. Not the dangerous look. The other one. Patient. Waiting. Without pressure.
Renji looked back.
"The public response has been largely positive." He said. Neutrally. Factually. The way he said most things.
"It has." Yukimura agreed.
"More positive than I'd anticipated." Renji continued. "I had modelled several scenarios based on previous public reactions to non-traditional relationships in professional sports. This outcome was in the optimistic range of my projections." His hands stilled around his tea cup. "Which is... good. It's good that I was wrong."
"You weren't entirely wrong." Yukimura said. "The world has just been changing. Quietly. While we were all watching other things."
A pause.
"That's all it ever is." Renji said quietly. Still neutral. Still measured. Except for his hands, which had not moved. "People finding something real and the world adjusting around it. Slowly. But adjusting."
Yukimura said nothing.
Sanada said nothing.
The kindest thing either of them knew how to do.
Renji looked at his laptop for a long moment.
"I think I'll go for a walk." He said.
"Okay." Sanada said simply, and picked up his tea.
Renji stood. Straightened his jacket. Looked at Sanada beside him at the table and Yukimura on Sanada's phone screen, the configuration they'd always been even across distances and oceans and years.
He nodded once.
They nodded back.
He left.
Sanada and Yukimura stayed in their respective places for a moment after the front door closed. Yukimura on Sanada's phone somewhere in Europe, Sanada at Renji's table with two cups of tea.
"He'll get there." Yukimura said.
"I know." Sanada replied.
"We'll be here when he does."
"Yes." Sanada said. "We will."
Hale's office was quiet by the time the view count stopped climbing enough for him to stop watching it.
He leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling for a while. It was a good ceiling. He'd spent a lot of time looking at it over fifteen years of this job, usually after something had gone well or badly enough to require ceiling contemplation.
Today it was the former.
He thought about the photo. The one that had started all of this; three people on a street in Osaka, late evening light, completely unaware of being seen. He'd saved it, the original unedited version, in a folder on his desktop where he kept things that mattered. Not for professional reasons. Just because.
He thought about Kirihara's voice memo. Still saved on his phone. Fifteen seconds of pure delighted chaos in a language he didn't speak.
He thought about Byodoin saying you did good in that grudging tone that meant he meant it completely.
He thought about Tanegashima saying it felt like someone was asking.
He pulled up a new document. Habit. There was always another story, always something else to cover, always the next thing waiting.
He sat there for a moment without typing anything.
His eyes drifted to the folder on his desktop. The one where he kept things. He opened it.
The Byodoin and Tokugawa photos were in there. The early ones, before they'd gone public, before the ATP Finals confession that the whole world had watched.
There was a folder for Tezuka and Echizen too. Nothing in it yet. Just the folder, labeled and waiting, for whenever that story was ready.
He closed it.
He looked at the new document on his screen.
Outside his window Los Angeles was doing what Los Angeles always did, loud and bright and relentless, completely indifferent to the small careful work happening in his office.
He thought about a circuit full of people finding things that were real. About the world adjusting around them, slowly, the way it always did when enough people stopped pretending.
He thought about Kirihara, who had never learned to pretend in the first place.
He started typing.
There was always another story.
He was glad he got to tell them.